Senator Marco Rubio,
alarmed by Donald J. Trump’s ascendancy and worried that his presidential
chances were slipping away, unleashed a barrage of attacks on the real estate
mogul’s business ethics, hiring practices and financial achievements in
Thursday’s debate, forcefully delivering the onslaught that Republican leaders
had desperately awaited. In a series of acid exchanges, a newly pugnacious Mr.
Rubio, long mocked for a robotic and restrained style, interrupted Mr. Trump,
quizzed him, impersonated him, shouted over him and left him looking unsettled.
It was an unfamiliar reversal of roles for the front-runner, who found himself
so frequently the target of assaults from Mr. Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz that
he complained it must have been a ploy for better television ratings. From the
opening moments of the debate, Mr. Rubio pounced. Deploying his own
up-by-the-bootstraps biography, the Florida senator assailed Mr. Trump for
hiring hundreds of foreign workers at his tony resort in Florida and passing
over Americans who had applied for the same jobs.
My mom was a maid in a
hotel,” Mr. Rubio said. “And instead of hiring an American like her, you’ve
brought over 1,000 people from all over the world to fill in those jobs
instead. Moments later, Mr. Rubio moved to cast Mr. Trump as a huckster who
outsourced the manufacturing of the clothing that bears his name to countries
like Mexico and China even as he promised to wage a trade war against those
countries. When Mr. Trump tried to protest, Mr. Rubio interrupted right back.
“Make them in America!” he demanded.
The acerbic and urgent
tenor of the exchanges reflected the panicked state of a Republican field
determined to halt Mr. Trump, whose crudely freewheeling style, abundant
self-assuredness and durable popularity have produced three consecutive
early-state victories that threaten to put the nomination out of reach for his
two biggest rivals, Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz. The two-hour rumpus frequently
devolved into unmediated bouts of shouting, name-calling and pleas to the
seemingly overwhelmed moderators for chances to respond to the latest insult.
“This guy’s a choke artist,” Mr. Trump declared, pointing to Mr. Rubio. “This
guy’s a liar,” he said, swiveling toward Mr. Cruz. The timing of Thursday’s
debate in Houston, just days before 595 delegates are awarded in voting across
the country on March 1, made it among the most anticipated and consequential
debates of the Republican campaign season and the first to feature a shrunken
field of five candidates. After resounding defeats at the hands of Mr. Trump in
the past two primaries, both Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz walked onto the stage
confronting treacherous paths ahead and a pressing dilemma: whether to keep
trying to destroy each other, their comfort zone in past debates, or to aim
their fire at Mr. Trump.
They chose war with Mr.
Trump. But amid the relentless back and forth, a question hovered: Was it too
late? It did not seem so, as Mr. Trump’s usual self-assurance gave way to a
less nimble performance. After a tense exchange with Mr. Cruz over the depth of
their conservatism and fidelity to the Constitution, Mr. Trump awkwardly asked
for an apology. Mr. Cruz refused, instead seizing on Mr. Trump’s values.
“Donald, I will not apologize for one minute for defending the Constitution,”
he said. The audience broke into applause. Given the intractability of Mr.
Trump’s support and the cruel mathematics of capturing the nomination, it was
unclear whether his shakiness in the debate would blunt his momentum,
especially with his impressive lead in several key states that will vote over
the next few days.
But for a single night,
it seemed, the dynamic among the candidates shifted, not only because Mr. Trump
appeared off-balance at times, but because his rivals seemed looser, more
comfortable and even delighted to take him on. Mr. Rubio smiled as he issued
biting dissections of the less savory chapters of Mr. Trump’s business history
and even questioned the very essence of Mr. Trump’s success story, saying he
was simply the heir to a vast fortune. “If he hadn’t inherited $200 million,
you know where Donald Trump would be right now? Selling watches in Manhattan?”
Mr. Rubio said, as the audience erupted in laughter. “That is so wrong,” Mr.
Trump said, plaintively. When, at another point, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Rubio
did not know “anything about business,” the senator responded: “I don’t know
anything about bankrupting four companies,” an allusion to Mr. Trump’s liberal
use of bankruptcy protections over the years.
For Mr. Rubio, the
night seemed to be something of a revival, allowing him to turn the most
painful moment of his campaign into an effective tactic against Mr. Trump.
Earlier this month, he inexplicably repeated himself four times in a disastrous
debate night run-in with Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. On Thursday night,
as Mr. Trump gave only a vague description of his health care proposals, Mr.
Rubio gave him the Christie treatment. “What’s your plan?” he taunted.
